Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Monday May 07, 2012 @07:22PM
from the and-they-say-gnu-on-the-desktop-will-never-happen dept.

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Phoronix: "Chris Kenyon, the VP of sales and business development for Canonical, just spoke this afternoon at the Ubuntu 12.10 Developer Summit about what Canonical does with OEMs and ODMs. He also tossed out some rather interesting numbers about the adoption of Ubuntu Linux. Namely, Ubuntu will ship on 5% of worldwide PC sales with a number of 18 million units annually."

All i can say is "about time". It's nice to see this happening just before the UEFI change-over as well to help ensure than Microsoft doesn't lock out other OS options, or at least there's a token commercial opposition. I'm not a fan of Canonical's Unity desktop, but I know some people are, and it definitely looks (and acts) better than 'Metro''. Overall, Canonical's timing could have been a bit better, but it could have been worse. Just before the change-over to a questionable version of Windows, and after a couple of fairly major OS X scares is a decent time to get some advertising in place.

It's nice to see this happening just before the UEFI change-over as well to help ensure than Microsoft doesn't lock out other OS options,

Why so worried about this? Microsoft's own hardware certification [microsoft.com] process requires this is not the case on x86 systems. Page 116:

MANDATORY: On non-ARM systems, the platform MUST implement the ability for a physically present user to select between two Secure Boot modes in firmware setup: "Custom" and "Standard". Custom Mode allows for more flexibility as specified in the following:

a) It shall be possible for a physically present user to use the Custom Mode firmware setup option to modify the contents of the Secure Boot signature databases and the PK.
b) If the user ends up deleting the PK then, upon exiting the Custom Mode firmware setup, the system will be operating in Setup Mode with Secure Boot turned off.
c) The firmware setup shall indicate if Secure Boot is turned on, and if it is operated in Standard or Custom Mode. The firmware setup must provide an option to return from Custom to Standard Mode which restores the factory defaults.

If you want everything working out of the box, you should probably buy hardware from Canonical (or whoever else ships it with Linux preinstalled) - if they ship it with UEFI, I'd imagine that they would pre-sign it accordingly.

They lock it on ARM for the same reason Google does it with ChromeOS, because if you can just bypass the boot security on a mobile device ALL security is as easy to bypass as "Hey want a free copy of "Plants VS Zombie" well just run this!" which then installs itself into the boot and ur pwned.

What I want to know is what kind of assurance is Canonical gonna provide to the OEMs. Are they gonna guarantee they won't screw the drivers in the main branch like they did with Dell [theinquirer.net] or are these OEMs gonna have to do

They lock it on ARM for the same reason Google does it with ChromeOS, because if you can just bypass the boot security on a mobile device ALL security is as easy to bypass as "Hey want a free copy of "Plants VS Zombie" well just run this!" which then installs itself into the boot and ur pwned.

What's interesting about the Microsoft associates on this site is how ignorant they are about computing, even their own operating systems.

There's this principle of having different execution contexts which is implemented (among other places) in the NT kernel at the heart of Windows operating systems. This is just as applicable in a mobile environment under ARM as anywhere else. You can mark one context as "administrator" which has access to the boot loader and another context as "user" which doesn't. This means that even if the user runs the "Plants VS Zombie" trojan it will not be able to take over the system, just the single user account. You can then provide a simple "restore to defaults" function which restores the user's account or even you can provide a proper anti-virus solution which runs in the administrator context but cleans up the user's context. This allows us to set up concept known as "defence in depth" [microsoft.com] where there is more than one layer of security protecting your system and you can even opt out of certain security features that aren't suitable for your application without compromising your overall security.

The great thing about using multiple execution contexts is this is that it can even be layered over a secure boot mechanism which is part of why Google ChromeOS is able to have a secure boot mechanism and still allow you to take total control of your system safely. Some systems like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora even provide multiple security contexts within one user context through advanced mechanisms like SELinux. For normal users this works out of the box, but if you want to achieve special effects there can be some considerable time investment. I'd advise you to install a new version of Fedora and spend the next ten years or so building custom secure execution environments so that you can keep yourself entertained for life.

ASLR [wikipedia.org] has often been found wanting. It is not a primary security layer, just a backup defence when the other layers fail.

none of these facts are even relevant to the discussion.

so YES YOU CAN screw the boot sector by simply writing to the correct memory address (which since we are talking hundreds of thousands of identical handsets isn't hard)

The thing you want to look up is memory protection [wikipedia.org]. This is before we even start discussing the.NET runtime which is what should be providing the protection against hostile code running in user owned memory space on a Microsoft environment, which is what we were discussing.

I will now just quote part of your post, putting beside each other two different things you said:

the engineers at Google they are idiots since they are doing the EXACT SAME THING as MSFT?
[.....]The ONLY difference between MSFT's version and Google's is that Google has a "dev mode" that will cripple the security

Ah yes, the engineers at Google are doing the "EXACT" same thing except it's different. Yes. Not "a very similar thing". Not even "the same thing" but "the exact same thing". But different. I think I have a tip for you from a real actor [youtube.com].

But hey, what can one expect with troll in their name except trolling.

Given the quality and hilarity of your post; I guess I should take it up full time and not just when people fail to read the article. I thought you guys were professionals.

The problem is, Microsoft and much of the rest of the computer industry see it the other way around: The PC x86 platform is open because of the "mistake" IBM made in 1981, and MS and rest will do their best to avoid that "mistake" to their bottom line again (or so their short-term thinking goes). The tradition of interchangeable extension cards, CPUs, RAM, etc. is the exception. Look pretty much anywhere else, and it's "not invented here", and competing standards all over. The phone industry couldn't even agree on a common charger plug before it was mandated upon them by EU law.

So what does the future look like? Well, no need to look through a crystal ball, just look out the window: Patent lawsuits over mundane stuff like slide-to-unlock and rounded corners. Google buying a complete company (Motorola), not because they want to sell phones, but because of the "patent war chest". Full break-down in innovation: Just go to any smart phone section in your local mall today, and it's a long row of almost identical devices. Slabs with ever bigger touch screens, which are less hackable than any IBM PC ever was.

Back to the BIOS lock-down issue, it is not unreasonable to expect that the IBM PC platform will diminish over time. Laptops are already outselling desktops, and phones are shipping in similar numbers. It might not be ARM which takes over everything, but x86 will surely fade at some point. And when that day arrives, MS and the rest will say: "Well, it's not x86, so we can screw you over any way we like".

As for the apologetic losers around here, who defend these practises, and toss away our freedom like it was leftover food; most of them are shills, astroturfers, or employees of said companies already. They will keep their cosy jobs and wonder what the big freedom fuss was about.

The main problem with UEFI is that it is so complex and bug-ridden that the only use for it is going to be preventing the removal of malware. If ever there was a system that needed to be "so simple there are obviously no errors" it is this one, but instead we have an implementation that is larger than the Linux megalithic kernel.Oh, and the future is not going to be X86, and Microsoft blatantly attempting to lock out all other OSes on other hardware.

So the users that reject the "rock" get to find the "hard place"? This isn't the way to differentiate yourself.

Some time ago I made the mistake of recommending Ubuntu to some friends wanting to ditch Vista on their laptop, but this was right before the window-controls debacle. I give them credit for persisting until Unity, but last time I saw them they'd gone back to Vista (and will probably buy a Win7 laptop before 8 comes out). I guess Vista actually looks good after experences like these - "Ubuntu? Wrong way, go back!"

...isn't that a preconfigured OS is installed on the computer. It's that a computer is sold with all of its hardware functional in Linux, so when one buys one of these, one can wipe the vanilla install off, if one chooses, and install one's own favorite distribution and know everything will work.

The other obvious benefit is no Microsoft tax. Even if Ubuntu gets some money, as opposed to the OS being truly fiscally free, at least that money goes to an entity that has a vested interest in improving Linux.

I've actually had very good luck with Ubuntu functionality. The only thing that caused me any real trouble was a RALink wireless card, and it was eventually well supported in later releases. This is across about 10 laptops, mainly quite low-end. I may have just been lucky, but everything but that card worked right out of the box. For a couple of things, there was some tweaking that could be done afterwards (proprietary graphics drivers, etc), but stuff did work to an acceptable level.

That is compelling to me. One of the biggest impediments to me running Linux (as someone who no longer really cares about building my own systems) is the impression I get that putting Linux on a system is a game of chance, especially when it comes to sound, or networking, or multiple monitors. If I know I can buy a system that's pre-loaded, guaranteed to work with all components, and supported, then a significant barrier has just been removed.

There are quite a few computer vendors that offer Linux options at purchase... Google around. Here's a list, for example: http://linuxpreloaded.com/ [linuxpreloaded.com]. I'm sure that a few of them ship internationally too. I suppose the main drawback is that the price is still steeper cause of shipping, but that's life....

Okay, serious question: does anyone sell a full-sized Linux laptop (or even a Windows laptop that is known to play well with Linux) with a centered trackpad? Every once in a while I think about getting off the Apple treadmill and buying a commodity PC laptop to run Linux on, and what keeps stopping me is the fact that damn near every PC laptop larger than a netbook has a trackpad shifted way the hell over to the left. I've tried using a few of these machines and they just seem like a bad case of RSI wait

https://www.system76.com/laptops/ [system76.com] both those have centered trackpads. The x220 (which I have) runs archlinux fine (save for having to add 1 line to rc.local.shutdown if you use laptop-mode-tools), but the x220 does have a windows tax.

seems like a pretty good deal to me actually, since it doesn't look like the cheap built dell/hp/acer consumer shit, though even consumer shit aforementioned brand laptops with similar specs preloaded with windows cost at least as much at most outlets.

i'm sure you could get cheaper, but there's always a catch (often reduced quality, customer service, after sales support, etc, which are all worth dollars)

i'm curious about what laptop you've found with a higher screen resolution than 1366x768 and an i5

Every once in a while I think about getting off the Apple treadmill and buying a commodity PC laptop to run Linux on

How come? Apple laptops are just commodity PC hardware these days anyway, what's the actual issue you have with the Apple laptops? I haven't installed Ubuntu on a mac since my 2007 imac and even then things went pretty smoothly from what i remember.

I get that. I honestly don't see nothing but improvement between 10.0 and 10.6 in terms of functionality. The plumbing has gotten much better and that has led to all sorts of interface enhancements in areas like drag and drop and selection that I use daily.

I like the direction 10.7 is going in moving applications away from hierarchical filesystem type approach which originated out of dual floppies and towards a mini computer like database filesystem. The all applications are always running and save state

That is compelling to me. One of the biggest impediments to me running Linux (as someone who no longer really cares about building my own systems) is the impression I get that putting Linux on a system is a game of chance, especially when it comes to sound, or networking, or multiple monitors. If I know I can buy a system that's pre-loaded, guaranteed to work with all components, and supported, then a significant barrier has just been removed.

Ubuntu, at least in 12.04 just did a perfect update form 11.04 for me. This was on a Toshiba Satellite around 4 years old, that was running Vista. Everything just worked, actually better than the Vista install, given that the "Toshiba Flash cards" app never worked in Vista, and updates always tried to turn it back on.

I think that some times people either try to install linux on a system that is either too new, or too old. When I first got the Satellite, it took me a week before I decided that I needed to

It's that a computer is sold with all of its hardware functional in Linux

You should be careful. I used to assume that this was true; however, when I bought my dell mini10 with ubuntu preinstalled a couple years ago it had some propriatary video junk that still barely works, and lacks 3D hardware suport. Look up Intel poulsbo.

Ya... be careful with that "all of its hardware functional in Linux" thing. OEMs are often not so good about that. You can get a computer with Linux on it and discover it is rather a disaster. Sometimes it is hardware that flat out doesn't work but more often it is shit that is flaky or doesn't support all the features of the hardware. It "works" and that is all they'll guarantee. Particularly when it is shit like 3D support they'll have some weak-ass excuse as to why software-only Mesa support is what they

...isn't that a preconfigured OS is installed on the computer. It's that a computer is sold with all of its hardware functional in Linux, so when one buys one of these, one can wipe the vanilla install off, if one chooses, and install one's own favorite distribution and know everything will work.

I'm no windows expert, however I recently had to build a windows machine as the other windows machine, running skype, had some broken problem, and I was only in the country for another day.

Took a recently decommissioned ubuntu machine, found a CD rom drive, and put windows 7 on. The machine is from about 2009, just before windows 7 came out.

After the long tedious install I found that the network card didn't work, and the graphics were stuck in 800x600.

A look (from my linux laptop) online revealed you have to download "drivers" to make hardware work? Windows gave little clue as to the type of graphics or network card, however I eventually found the equivalent of lspci, and managed to find the pci-id (using my linux laptop again). Finally found the motherboard manufacturer, only to be told this motherboard had something like "boxed support", and I couldn't download the driver.

As time was running out and I had a plane to catch I had to give up. I'm now going to have to fly half way round the world again to fix the mess.

Moral of the story? If you want something to just work, just slap a recent ubuntu on.

what the fuck hardware are you running? or are you just stuck in the 90's

I am sorry to say while Linux has improved its hardware support, I find that it runs into those wierdest gaps in its support.
A video driver that refuses to detect native resolution, or leaves pixel droppings.
A wifi card that does WEP but not WPA. Things like that. Most people do not find a PC that will meet Linux compatibility. But get a PC that works, then later try Linux, only to find those little glitches that makes it feel cheap. It is usually the driver and hardware companies not being forthcoming. But still it doesn't work right people won't like it.
Insulting people who report hardware problems helps no one. If you want a world where Linux is common on the desktop you are going to get your head out of the blind zealotry, admit your OS of choose isn't perfect and help fix it.

what the fuck hardware are you running? or are you just stuck in the 90's

I am sorry to say while Linux has improved its hardware support, I find that it runs into those wierdest gaps in its support.
A video driver that refuses to detect native resolution, or leaves pixel droppings.
A wifi card that does WEP but not WPA. Things like that. Most people do not find a PC that will meet Linux compatibility. But get a PC that works, then later try Linux, only to find those little glitches that makes it feel cheap. It is usually the driver and hardware companies not being forthcoming. But still it doesn't work right people won't like it.
Insulting people who report hardware problems helps no one. If you want a world where Linux is common on the desktop you are going to get your head out of the blind zealotry, admit your OS of choose isn't perfect and help fix it.

This is one of those "I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you" type of situations. If you don't like surprise problems (neither do I), the way to do it is to match the hardware to the operating system. Not the other way around. With modern Linux distributions this is downright easy, but this is general to any OS.

If you're not willing to do that, your best bet is to buy a system that already has Linux pre-installed, as another poster has mentioned. That way you know the hardware is compatible. That's also general to any OS.

Those are the two correct ways to do this without a (with Linux usually small) risk of preventable compatibility problems. They are not exclusive to Linux. If you don't know how to do these things, you can at least recognize that you're out of your element and ask someone who does. That's the prudent thing to do when you're about to invest a non-trivial sum of cash or time in something you don't really understand. That could be cars, computers, financial securities, whatever -- the principle is the same.

None of this requires technical expertise because that can be supplied before a rash decision is made. I don't know what it is about computers but people seem to shut down whatever common sense they possess, even when they demonstrate it elsewhere. I can see why they're tempted to blame the computer, because then it's "not their fault" and they avoid (i.e. run from) admitting to themselves how little sense they used, but that doesn't solve anything. It's just a weak excuse.

So, you suggest helping to fix the OS. That would be fixing what isn't broken. This form is a common one: suggesting a technical solution to a non-technical problem. That can be tempting sometimes. It's unfortunately misguided because it's entangled with effects while failing to address causes.

The OS can add support for more hardware but that doesn't mean that blindly buying hardware, later throwing an OS on it, and praying that it works is good decision-making. It's still the impatient, error-prone way to do things. More hardware support only means that the (usually small) risk of compatibility problems with this particular OS gets a bit smaller. That's why anyone who has problems here and complains instead of accepting the lesson is whining.

Truth explaining what their mistake was is in a non-malicious way would be the help they need. Afterwards you can try giving them the help they want, by supplying the driver(s) they lack or by finding some kind of workaround. That's if you really care and are not just trying to get rid of them with a quick-fix.

Many people also have very little hardware knowledge and are intimidated by the technical aspects of computers. Furthermore, for even veteran Linux users, compatibility is not always clear. I agree with your post in principle, but it feels a little like a fantasy world instead of reality.

For example, a couple of years ago my wife got a Wacom Tablet to play with and wanted it on her Linux system. I struggled with that thing for hours on Debian until I gave up. I moved to my Gentoo server, recompiled the kernel, built a module and it worked fine. I have been using Linux exclusively for 10 years and I still run into problems like this every now and then. Had I not done this, she simply would have switched back to Microsoft just to get her tablet working.

If GNU/Linux wants wider adoption, hardware compatibility and the concept of "it just works" is still a major problem.

Same here, except it's an i5 box I built. The RALink WiFi card wasn't recognized in Win7, but luckily I had saved the driver/installer on another partition. Ubuntu had no problems recognizing it.

Win XP on a Thinkpad T43p had no sound. I had to find drivers for it. Ubuntu has no problem with sound on the laptop.

Dell Mini has had no driver problems running Ubuntu (it came with a Dell version that I wiped and loaded with regular Ubuntu) and another newer Thinkpad has no problems with drivers in Win7 and Ubuntu (running the latest version).

I had to go into "additional drivers" on my MILs Dell (few years old) to enable wireless. So not automatic, but certainly easily available (ethernet worked, so I was able to download that way).

All annecodotal, I know, but there aren't always problems and for me, Ubuntu just works better.

I had the same problem with linux the last time I used it (~2 years ago). Three identical boxes at work. Other two running Ubuntu (10.10 I think it was at the time), no problems installing everything worked. My box: blam no graphics. Just a black screen right after POST. I ended up having to boot into safe mode and after much searching on line change some flags in the linux driver. I still don't get why the other boxes it worked fine with same hardware but that is the quirks. That said random crap happens i

If you had issues like these then the hardware clearly wasn't exactly the same, and this is a common problem...Large scale box shifters like dell will often change the hardware in a box without changing the model number, wether its wifi chipset, motherboard revision, hard drive model etc... It's quite common to see supposedly "identical" machines with different guts.

what the fuck hardware are you running? or are you just stuck in the 90's

I had a problem with my Gateway MX7525 laptop- the kernel had problems with the realtime clock and it advanced a minute in about 35 seconds at the slowest, and sometimes as fast as a minute every few seconds. This was 2006 or so. At the time there was no solution to the problem. I never bothered to get it working, and some day I should either update it or reclaim the partition space for Windows.

Couldn't that argument be made for Windows? If it comes preinstalled with Windows then you should be able to wipe it, reinstall anew, and have everything work? Of course that's not the case: you frequently have to hit up the manufacturer's website for assorted drivers (especially for wireless devices).

Thanks for twisting my argument. I meant equipment that can be supported, not just equipment that works instantly out of the box. If the hardware maker provides functional, workable support even via down

Couldn't that argument be made for Windows? If it comes preinstalled with Windows then you should be able to wipe it, reinstall anew, and have everything work? Of course that's not the case: you frequently have to hit up the manufacturer's website for assorted drivers (especially for wireless devices).

Dude!, I've just reinstalled Windows on a Dell system that had a drive malfunction. It didn't install the Ethernet driver, the video or audio drivers. Couldn't even tell me the model of the cards. Went to the Dell site but turns out you have to be running Internet Exploder for them to look up the card types. Thought I was taken back to 1999. The site kept freezing Exploder on my vista machine - I think it was mad that I was running Vista and asking for XP drivers, but who knows. Finally I downloaded the Eth

Then you might as well have simply installed normal pirated versions for your company too, the windows bulk licenses are upgrades to be applied over the oem versions which will get you screwed if anyone ever decides to do an audit.

The big question is, where?I tried to find a laptop with linux preinstalled a few months ago, and the few i could find were either overpriced, outdated models or wouldn't ship to where i am... None of the big vendors seemed to offer anything at all, or they were extremely well hidden on their websites.

Mentioned in TFA. I think it depends on where it's bought, though. If 5% of computers were sold with Ubuntu in most European countries, for example, I doubt a huge portion of those buyers would have the balls to install pirated Windows on top. The price difference just wouldn't be enough to encourage it.

And I would argue that lack of ability or will to install an OS is one of the main reasons Linux isn't more widespread on the desktop.

While there is certainly something repugnant about it, shovelware on Linux could make the hardware vendors even more money. In a commodity market such as computer hardware, not paying Microsoft, but still being able to use crapware would really help margins I would think.

This is actually totally believable. I have encountered more random people running Ubuntu than anything else. Random non-geek people. Seriously. In fact, I've never encountered non-geek people running any other distribution.

It isn't a huge number, but it's not insignificant. 5% is very believable.

I've had quite a number of friends and cow-orkers convert and most prefer it to Windows. I make sure to show them the alternate desktop managers though, and most seem to prefer Gnome 2 or Gnome-shell over Unity. I think there are a couple that run Mint as well. After using Linux for a month or so the consensus seems to be that it is actually easier to use than Windows. They're both about the same for the really simple stuff, but anything beyond that in Windows had been getting more difficult to do with each

Actually, Steam is coming to Linux. And there has been a lot of pressure on Kickstarter projects to support Linux. And the Humble Indie Bundle has shown that Linux people are even more willing to pay for their games than Windows people. So I'm hopeful that will change soon. It's starting to be seen as a platform rather than a toy by the people who make games.

Side Note #2: Kenyon didn't comment on what percentage of these Ubuntu-loaded PC sales still have users where they run Ubuntu, or namely the actual Ubuntu user count globally. The OEM/ODM count also obviously doesn't count those that install Ubuntu manually or obtain Ubuntu installations via other means. On the down side, when I talk with OEMs and others about Linux pre-loads, I commonly here a "significant percentage" of these Linux pre-loaded systems usually get wiped by their customers and replaced with pirated copies of Windows -- especially in the Asian markets, where customers are just going after the Linux PCs due to the lower sales cost.

On one hand I'm glad that there are other choices, but I wonder what the actual number of purchases just to wipe and install the latest pirated version of Windows is.

Good for the author (Michael Larabel) for highlighting the issue being seen in the Asian markets where these machines are being wiped and installed with pirated Windows as soon as they arrive at the customer. I am willing to bet as many as 4.9% of these PCs are wiped for Windows by the customer.

While I have issues running the 12.04 distribution, most people don't seem to have any problem. From what I've seen of it, the UI has been substantially cleaned up and a lot of configurability has been implemented. From a performance standpoint, I saw up to a 30% improvement in the runtimes of some key utilities I tested over the course of a weekend compared to 10.04.1, with absolutely no investment in hardware upgrades what so ever.

I didn't do enough testing before nuking the partition to determine if

ubuntu is only pre-installed on low end PCs in places like Brazil & Mexico, China and other places where the cost of the PC is whittled down so bare-bones low that even OEM MS_Windows installs are cost prohibitive, but you can count on pirated copies being printed up on CDr sold out of disposable alleyway shacks

Did you know that Canonical have not invented anything new in Unity but just making everything even more limited (shortcuts and all of those) when compared over decade old shortcuts and functions of mainstream desktops?

My main problem is having multiple of the same program open, ie. 6 terminals. I can't work out how to select the one I want, Alt-tabbing (or alt `) shows them as small previews but terminals look very similar, and the title bar on the bottom even more so if you have multiple ssh sessions open. Previously I just knew positionally on the task bar which was which.

Has anyone else found a way to work round this? I'm starting to get far too frustrated and am close to switching to XFCE.

How is that sad? Would you rather use Windows than Linux with Gnome Shell? KDE? XFCE? LXDE? IceWM? OpenBox?
If so, well, there's the other 95% that you're welcome to buy! I am happy with Unity, and even happier that I don't have to use it if I don't want to.
I hope you're happy with Metro.
Good Riddance, and please stop whining about not liking something that you don't have to use.

Most people will not know how to change the desktop manager. They'll be stuck with a piece of shit UI that is a hindrance to productivity and workflow. I am also sad that you have no discernment in the matters of UI.

They surely won't! But the difference is people can be shown how to do something that is possible, whereas Metro users will have a choice of Metro or...um...Metro. Don't like it? Too bad.
As for your condemnation of the UI, it's kind of egocentric to think that your workflow is the same as everyone else's. What's really important to me is that I can get the things done that I need to do, and I do them using Unity. I'm sorry for you that not everyone wants to stick with your Windows 3.1 era idea of UI perfec

Installing blackbox on windows is actually more effort than installing a different wm on ubuntu (through the software center) and then selecting it when you log in...It's also a far less common thing to do on windows, so you often get all kinds of unexpected bugs cropping up because 99% of software just assumes the default wm will be in use.

That said, it could be easier still, ubuntu could offer users a few screenshots and the opportunity to select from a few environments by default... This would have been

Will MS let Windows 8 users make the OS look like Windows 7, using a Control Panel setting? Or at least, will there be third party utilities - paid or unpaid - to enable that? Either of these could still salvage Windows 8. when it comes to that.

Most people will not know how to change the desktop manager. They'll be stuck with a piece of shit UI that is a hindrance to productivity and workflow. I am also sad that you have no discernment in the matters of UI.

Here's the irony. After 20 years Linux has finally got a GUI that's been well designed. And all the freetards on Slashdot are so conservative, they hate it.

Actually you can install it in the software center with just a few clicks. You don't even need to use the terminal. Besides the point here is at least users will be running an install target to begin with - if they find out about Gnome 3 and want to try it they can.

If you want to mess with your UI on Windows, there's all kinds of stuff to do it. MS has some limited tools and customizations but they really aren't in to that thing. The biggest purveyor of such things is probably Stardock. They have a massive set of tools to customize the looks of Windows in all kinds of ways, including very radical changes. They've been doing it for years and so are quite good at it. You can buy a whole suit of stuff or get produces one by one to customize what you like.

Also you can simple replace explorer as the shell. Windows doesn't mandate its use, it is just what is included, what is default. Another popular one is BB4Win, which is a windows manager inspired by Blackbox (different codebase though). It sees use on systems where people want somethign different, but also sometimes on Windows PE boot systems to keep memory usage down since it is less heavy hitting than explorer.

So in the future, perhaps less snark if you've not actually tried what you speak of. That Windows doesn't ship with 5 window managers, 20 media players, and so on does not mean that it only supports one thing. It is quite extensible, it just have a very well defined and enriched standard set of tools.

Linux is nothing but a kernel, all the rest is up to the person who decides to package it up, as such there are no mandated standards, just ad hoc ones and often many of them. It is a minimal OS definition, the rest is up for grabs.

Windows is an enriched OS definition. It includes a whole lot of stuff with it. It does not exclude you from adding your own, it just mandates that it comes with a bunch of things. Explorer, IE, WDM, DirectX, RDP, etc, etc are all part of the definition that is "Windows". It comes with all of it, however it is not less modular for it. You can add BB4Win, Firefox, ASIO, OpenGL, VNC and so on and they will all work fine, you can use them in addition to or in place of their various included components.

that is scary to most users because they afraid of terminals. so for them click ubuntu software centre type kubuntu into the search box click install. enter your password wait for it to finish logout log back in under kde.

and i used to wonder how a command prompt was more powerful tiil i started using now i do all of the time i hope people keep Linux installed but most will probably wipe it, mind you i love linux but it scares people and vm's scare people almost as much.

I find this scenario much better than the alternative: Windows Starter.

In all countries, it should be mandatory to offer an OS-less or free-OS choice; it should be illegal to provide windows only pre-installs, because that is benefiting a particular corporation which is anti-competitive at best.

It is the user's problem if they buy a windows license or install ubuntu, but at least they are not forced to pay the Microsoft tax.

In my work, many brand machines with windows pre-installed have been wiped in favor of Debian. So is not like the opposite doesn't happen, all it takes is a company policy change and thats it.

Ubuntu pre-installed will introduce it to people who would have never tried it before, even if they wipe it, they will now learn there is "something else" out there... And perhaps one day they will give it another chance, perhaps after utter frustration and countless windows reinstalls, or the Windows 8 Metro Experience;)

Linpus [distrowatch.com] Linux is a commercial, Fedora-based distribution developed by Linpus Technologies, a Linux company with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan and a development office in Shanghai, China. The product's main features are support for both traditional and simplified Chinese. Given that, it seems strange that they should sell it in Thailand, which is not a Chinese speaking country. Of course, if the sole purpose is to wipe out the drive, they could have announced that it's being installed w/ Tiny Core Linux o

It's not just a lower and more savvy userbase that reduces the malware on linux...The system is better designed than windows has been, with a number of features that make the spread of malware more difficult, for instance:

central updates of all software (vs windows update which only handles the base os, leaving acrobat/flash/java easily exploitable)non root user by default (which ms have finally caught on to, years after everyone else)downloaded files dont have execute permission by defaultfile extensions are not only less important (aren't used to determine if a file is executable) but are also not hidden by defaultdoesn't automatically execute anything on inserted mediapackage management - users are less likely to download and execute random binaries, if they want to install something they can select it from the package manager